Depending on when a respondent reported their answers to the weekly AAII sentiment survey, they could have been justified in giving either bullish or bearish. From last Thursday’s close to Tuesday, the S&P 500 rallied a little more than 4% but anyone reporting yesterday would have reflected the index giving back all of those gains in a single session. Given that back and forth of equities, sentiment remains little changed. Around a quarter of respondents remain in the bullish camp as has now been the case for three weeks in a row. Albeit a historically low reading, it is a major improvement from readings in the mid-teens only one month ago.

Bearish sentiment meanwhile ticked higher and back above 50% this week. As with bullish sentiment, that is an overwhelmingly pessimistic reading even if it is less extreme than last month when it closed in on a 60% reading.

The bull-bear spread in turn was marginally improved rising from -24.7 to -24.4 indicating sentiment stays heavily slated toward pessimism.

With both bearish and bullish sentiment gaining share this week, the percentage of respondents reporting neutral sentiment fell back below 25% to 23.6%.